anathema (ə-na-thə-mə) n. - someone or something intensely disliked or loathed

Mihyun pressed her ear closer to Sehun’s chest to listen to the rhythmic beats of his heart. The two of them had been lying in bed for quite a while now despite the fact that the sun had set long ago. The events that occurred earlier that day completely exhausted them, yet they still couldn’t find themselves giving into their fatigue.

"Can I ask you something...?" Sehun asked quietly, interrupting the lull.

Mihyun hummed in agreement, paying more attention to the invisible lines she drew on Sehun's large hand. It was interesting to see the vast contrast in size, for Sehun’s hand was nearly twice as large as her own.

"Why did you do this for us?" Sehun asked, his tongue darting out to his suddenly dry lips. Mihyun stilled her movements with Sehun’s hand, and he quickly continued on, "The rebellion, I mean. Why were you so willing to sacrifice everything you had for people you knew for less than a month?"

He glanced nervously over at the girl, worried that she might have taken offense to his honest curiosity. The pregnant silence after his question burned into the air, and Sehun was just about to take back his question until Mihyun finally responded.

“Can I… can I tell you the truth?” Mihyun asked quietly as she placed Sehun’s hand aside. Sehun took this as a bad sign.

“Yeah,” Sehun nodded his head firmly. He watched as Mihyun pushed herself into an upright position. She turned away from Sehun, fearing that she wouldn’t be able to finish her words if she was staring at him. The silence continued to stretch on, and Sehun propped himself up with his elbows just enough so could see the girl, “Mihyun?”

“The reason I did this… the reason…” Mihyun murmured as she ran her hand through her long hair, disheveled from lying on Sehun’s chest for the past few hours. She took a deep breath of air, as if to calm her nerves before coming completely clean with the boy.

"Because... Because this rebellion, it wasn't just a rebellion for you all. It was, I guess you could say a rebellion for myself as well; a rebellion against the world I had grown to hate. I wanted to tarnish the world’s perfectly operating society,” Mihyun began slowly, her words beginning to pick up pace as she spoke, “I hated my life at the time. I hated the servants that would greet me whenever I came home. I hated the expectations and responsibilities bestowed onto me by my father. I hated acting like the perfect child I knew I really wasn't.”

Mihyun glanced over her shoulder, but quickly looked away once she met eye contact with Sehun. Her palms began to sweat from how hard her heart was beating, and she quickly wiped them against her pajamas.

“And then you guys came along and I... I guess I saw it as an opportunity to change. I was so eager to run away from the life society had dictated for me that I carelessly put all of yours in harm’s way. I was just being a selfish, rebellious teenager who used her money and power to get everything she wanted - I didn't think I would grow as emotionally attached to everybody as I am now," Mihyun chuckled bitterly. "I'm not as selfless as you guys think I am, you know. I've been saying that from the start."

She tensed at the uneasy silence that answered her, and stole a glance at Sehun’s expression, "Do you hate me now?"

Sehun’s eyes widened at her words and he quickly waved his hands back and forth to deny her claim.

"No I'm actually kind of satisfied that you initially did this for yourself," Sehun admitted after a beat of silence. Mihyun turned to face him with eyes widened slightly from disbelief. He chuckled at her reaction and reached out to touch her arm. "That means you got something out of this for yourself too."

Mihyun pursed her lips and tapped his forehead with her finger, “Yeah, I got you."

Sehun let out a loud snort. "You have a way with your words, you know that?" Sehun muttered lovingly under his breath as he pulled Mihyun into his arms. He rested his chin comfortably on top of her head, "All of that doesn't matter to me, Mihyun, whatever your initial intentions were.”

Sehun flushed a bright color of red as he murmured his next few words, “It… it makes me love you even more, to be honest, because it makes you human. I don’t want you to be perfect, you know.”

Mihyun’s heart pounded against her chest as his words processed through her mind. It was the first time Sehun had verbalized his affection for her, other than the time he had confessed, and the word love sounded so foreign to her ears. She tried pulling away from him so she could look at his face, but he protested by wrapping his arms tightly around her waist.

“I’m embarrassed so don’t look at me,” Sehun muttered as he tightened his grip around her to a higher degree. He flushed even darker when the sound of Mihyun’s tinkling laughter met his ears, “Don’t laugh.”

“Such a cutie,” Mihyun teased as she pinched him gently on the side.

“Stop it!” Sehun whined as he knocked her gently on the back of her head with his knuckle.

Mihyun laughed even harder at his childish antics, and wrapped her arms around his waist to snuggle even closer into his hold, "Do you know why I chose you Sehun? That day in the hallways? It was because you had the defiant look in your eyes that I wished I could have in mine.”

Sehun scoffed, “So all of that you're beautiful stuff was just bull?”

“Initially yeah," Mihyun confessed with a small laugh. She pulled away from his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck to stare straight into his eyes, "But in the end I was right. You are beautiful.”

“Boys don't want to be called beautiful, Mihyun,” Sehun responded matter of factly, pressing his forehead against hers, “We want to be called handsome and manly.”

Mihyun hummed in agreement as she pressed her lips against his. Despite her consistent nagging for him to start using chap stick, she still felt his chapped lips mold against her own. Still, she didn’t mind it, for she loved everything that made Sehun who he was – chapped lips and all.

Surprising it was Sehun who pulled away first, and he smiled lovingly at the flushed state of her cheeks, “We have a long day tomorrow, or really today, so we should get to sleep. If we continue this any longer I don’t think I’ll be able to restrain myself.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled the both of them down to lie across the bed.

Mihyun hummed in agreement as she pressed her head against his chest, searching for the familiar beating of his heart.

“Good night, Mihyun,” Sehun murmured as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. He hesitated for a few seconds before shyly muttering, “Love you.”

Mihyun closed her eyes, enjoying the sound the word made in her ears – especially when made with Sehun’s voice. She took Sehun’s large hand into her considerably smaller one and intertwined their fingers. Bringing their hands up to her lips, she pressed a soft kiss against the back of Sehun’s hand.

“I love you too, my handsome Sehun.”

Mihyun met eyes with Jaemin the second she walked into the courthouse, and she grimaced at how smugly he was staring back at her. He leaned over to whisper a few words into the ear of his attorney, and they both glanced in her direction before letting out a chorus of obnoxious laughter.

Mihyun took a deep breath of air to clam her nerves.

She wanted to rip his face off.

“Ignore those s,” Jaesuk whispered as he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “They won’t be laughing by the time this day ends.”

Mihyun glanced gratefully back at him before letting out a small breath of air, “You think we can beat them, Jaesuk?”

Jaesuk nodded his head confidently, “There’s no way we could lose this, Agashi. Not with the amount of preparation you and Yixing have been doing this past week.”

Mihyun smiled, reassured by the words of confidence the other gave her.

“Ah, Mihyun!” Yixing bowed as he stepped forward, nodding his greetings to the other three boys, Sehun, Luhan, and Jaesuk, that stood behind her.

Sehun watched as Yixing and Mihyun immediately got engulfed into a deep discussion as to what they were planning to do for the day. He knew it would be hard to keep track as to what was happening, with all the legal terms and sophisticated arguments that would be thrown around. Sehun wasn’t stupid, but his education under the Noye house could only take him so far.

Sehun resisted the urge to push up the sleeves of his suit after already getting scolded by Mihyun several times. He hated the uncomfortable clothing, and he honestly couldn’t understand how the upper class could wear such constricting outfits nearly every day of their lives. His dress shirt felt uncomfortable tucked into his pants, and his tie was wrapped so tightly around his neck he could hardly breathe.

Luhan, on the other hand, enjoyed the elegant wear. He felt refined, even with the excess layers piled on top of his skin. With his suit on, one could hardly differentiate between him and the other chaebols and nobles in the room.

“We should take our seats,” Jaesuk nodded to a row near the front of the room. “I won’t be able to explain to you what is happening, so you two will have to try your best to follow along.”

Both Sehun and Luhan nodded understandingly.

“It’s fine,” Sehun shrugged, jerking his head in Jaemin’s direction. “If anything I can just watch Jaemin and judge if everything is going in our favor by how he reacts.”

Jaesuk chuckled at the thought and nodded his head in agreement, “That sounds like a good solution as well.”

He watched as the jury members began to file out of a door and take their respective seats on the side of the room. “It’s beginning,” he nodded to Sehun and Luhan.

It was hard for the pair to understand what was happening, for much of the debate consisted of laws being read out of a large book and arguments that were too complex for them to follow. Still, Sehun could get a sense of how the arguments were flowing by the look on Jaemin’s face. The frown that had been stretched across his lips for the past few hours was a good sign that things weren’t going particularly in his favor.

Luhan nudged him gently in the ribs with his elbow, “Mihyun’s going up.”

His words immediately got Sehun to snap his attention back to the front of the room, and he watched with pride as Mihyun took a seat with her back facing the audience. As calm as she might have appeared to the eye, Sehun knew she must have been shaking out of her wits on the inside. He didn’t understand most of the words that were coming from Mihyun’s mouth, but he knew that that meant they were all so much more sophisticated than a common day person.

Sehun couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride burst inside of his chest. If it had been the Sehun from a few weeks ago sitting there, the view would have had a tremendously negative effect on his self esteem. How could he manage to keep up with a beautiful girl of such high intellect? The Sehun now, however, knew better than to think such things.

This beautiful girl belonged to him, and likewise he to her. The words she had whispered before falling asleep was clear evidence of that. “I love you too, my handsome Sehun.” His lips spread into a bright smile at the recollection. Normally his skin would have curled at such corny and cliché words, but coming from Mihyun he couldn’t help but feel uttermost glee.

“Are you smiling because you understand what’s happening or because you like looking at her?” Luhan asked quietly with a cocked head.

“The latter,” Sehun answered without even a beat of hesitation.

Luhan rolled his eyes and slumped in his seat, “Of course.”

Sehun ignored his tone and continued to train his eyes on Mihyun’s back. Even from behind she looked absolutely gorgeous. The girl remained in the front seat only for a few minutes, and as she turned to head back to her seat she caught Sehun’s gaze. Sehun’s jaw dropped slightly in surprise once Mihyun flashed him a curt wink. His cheeks flamed at the bold action, and his gaze immediately fell down to his lap.

“You’re like a teenage girl,” Luhan chortled under his breath.

Sehun liked it better when he couldn’t talk.

By the time the day was over Sehun had lost feeling in both of his legs. He shook the numbness out of his limbs as he nudged Luhan gently awake. The boy had gotten tired of the words and arguments he didn’t understand long ago, and had been snoring softly at Sehun’s side for well over an hour.

“Is it done?” Luhan murmured as he rubbed his fists sleepily against his eyes. “Did we win?”

“The appeal is supposed to last for a few more days, remember?” Sehun shook his head as he stretched his arms high over his head. He paused for a few seconds and smugly jerked his head over to where Jaemin was seated, “Judging by Jaemin’s expression, however, today has gone rather well in our favor.”

Luhan followed his line of sight and nodded his head in agreement, “He looks like he’s about to kill somebody or cry.”

He tugged at Jaesuk’s sleeve to catch his attention and asked, “Did today go well?”

A bright smile flashed across Jaesuk’s face and held a thumb up, “Extremely.”

Sehun didn’t know whether Jaesuk was telling the truth or not, but he decided to trust the other’s judgment. A similar smile stretched across his face, and he grinned proudly up at Mihyun who was still conversing with the other attorneys.

The three of them waited patiently for Mihyun to conclude her discussion with the other attorneys before finally making her way over to them.

“You did great,” Jaesuk grinned proudly as he quickly engulfed her into a tight hug. He released her reasonably after a few seconds, however, not wanting to test the impatient boy beside him.

“You must have been bored, huh?” Mihyun laughed as she gave both Sehun and Luhan a quick hug, eager to get back home to rest.

“No, not at all!” Luhan shook his head enthusiastically. “You were great!”

“You’d be more convincing if you didn’t have dried drool on the corner of your lip,” Mihyun teased as she disheveled the front of Luhan’s hair. She glanced down at her watch and nodded her head, “Let’s hurry and head home for an early dinner. We can pick up some food on the way as a reward for the successful day.”

“I already sent the boys back home a quick text telling them that the day went well,” Jaesuk nodded as they begun to make their way out of the courthouse. “They should be having their own small celebration now.”

“Don’t get their hopes up too high,” Mihyun shook her head, “There are still a few days left before an official decision is made.”

“The only reason the first case had failed was because the jury had been bribed,” Jaesuk shrugged. “The problem has been avoided this time around, so I’m sure the win is within our grasps.”

Mihyun beamed at his words, mentally agreeing but not wanting to jinx anything that might happen. “I’m going to go to the rest room very quick, so wait for me at the car.”

She gave them a quick wave before heading towards the hall, tapping her chin lightly with her finger in attempts to remember where the bathroom was located.

A loud slap echoed through the abandoned hall, immediately catching her attention. She stopped midstep, and quickly snapped her head in the direction the sound had come from. Two figures stood at the far end of the hall, one with his head hung in shame, the other with an outstretched arm of fury.

Mihyun recognized the pair as Jaemin and his father. It had been quite a while since she last saw Woosung in the hallways, and the man appeared as if he had aged years in those few weeks.

That was probably her fault, but she didn’t feel any guilt.

“You insolent bastard! You’re going to let this stupid, this stupid girl get the better of you?” Woosung hissed angrily, the palm of his hand meeting painfully with Jaemin’s cheek once more.

Jaemin offered no words in response, and he merely continued to hang his head as he dealt with his father’s blows.

Mihyun stared at the father son pair with indifference, and was about to move on until Jaemin crumpled to the floor after a rough blow. Woosung didn’t stop there, and continued to stamp his foot angrily onto his son, “You – worthless- filth!”

It was then that Mihyun felt a foreign tug at her heart – one she had never felt for Jaemin ever before. She contemplated speaking up, but decided against it; she was sure that her defense would only crumble Jaemin’s pride even further. Jaemin could have easily, easily defended himself against his father’s blows, yet he still refused to do so.

Mihyun tore her gaze away from the sight, and after using the restroom, she silently walked back outside to join the others who had been waiting for her.

“There are two men having a brawl in the left corridor,” she whispered quietly to a security guard she passed. “Please subdue the situation before it gets out of hand.”

She didn’t stay for any questions, and watched with satisfaction from the corner of her eye as a pair of security guards immediately rushed into the courthouse.

“You took forever!” Sehun whined when she finally climbed into the car. His blazer had already been thrown somewhere in the trunk, and his tie hung loosely from his neck. “This stuff is more uncomfortable than the rags they made me where in the Noye house,” Sehun huffed as he tried ing the cuffs of his sleeves.

“I don’t know, I like it!” Luhan grinned happily as he held his arms out in front of him to stare at the crisp suit admiringly.

Mihyun laughed at the sight, and leaned over to help Sehun get the offending piece of clothing off of his skin.

“This is much better,” Sehun nodded with relief as he sat there in his messy wife beater. He kicked off the toe pinching shoes, and loosened the belt around his slacks. “Much, much better.”

“You’re such a slob,” Jaesuk scoffed after glancing at the male through the review mirror.

“I might be a slob, but at least I’m a slob in comfort,” Sehun shrugged, taking no offense to his words. He turned to Mihyun and grinned cheekily at her, “Mihyun loves me either way, right?”

“Too cocky,” Mihyun sighed as she shook her head with mock disappointment.

To this Luhan chortled, “Agreed!”

“I like you so much better when you weren’t speaking!” Sehun growled as he pulled Luhan in for a head lock. “You brat of a hyung!”

“Yah! You’re ruining my suit! Stop! Stop!” Luhan screamed in protest as he tried to escape from Sehun’s hold.

Mihyun laughed at the amusing scene before her, but fell silent once she caught sight of Jaemin trudging out of the courthouse. His clothes now completely disheveled and wrinkled from the beating he had received. The pair made eye contact through the car window, but Jaemin immediately wretched his eyes from hers no more than a second after they connected. Mihyun let out a soft sigh before turning back to Luhan and Sehun to lift her spirits once more.

Still, she couldn’t get rid of the thought that was tugging her mind back to Jaemin.

There were always two sides to every story.

Likewise, there were always two sides to every person.

Mihyun wondered which side she saw of Jaemin was the true side.